Tuesday, April 20, 2010

I love Chrome

I must admit the only reason this bike has an S&S carb on it is because they are shiny. I removed all the chrome from my Sportster almost entirely, this one will have lots of it. I started buying parts for this bike about 6 1/2 years ago, seems like a long time to build a bike. I've watched Hootis build at least 4 sweet bikes just in the last 4 years. What can I say I'm taking my time and I think about shit for way to long. I have spent alot of money on the Sportster in the last few winters re-doing it and last year I built the motor. I'm trying to build my perfect motorcycle the first try out. Some say that's not the way to go, just build it you can always build another one. I don't want another one, I want this one. Someday I hope to get to the point I can trade in a bagger every couple years and stay on a newer bike but I'm no where near able to do that now. I'm putting it together with long term reliability and me being able to fix it myself. That's one reason for it's simplicity.

Back to the chrome. I've been saying, for a couple years anyways, that if you want a nice bike you gotta use nice parts. I've tried very hard not to use cheap china made crap on anything important. There is some import shit on the bike, but very little.

I made a swap deal with a guy named Alex on The Horse swap board to trade him a set of 83-99 brake calipers for the 2000-2003 lower sliders that I need to get the forks working with my front wheel. Now I just need to get a brake caliper. I think I'm going to call Paul @ Hardtails and see if he has one. He's got a good pile of swap meet stuff and makes all the meets in winter time.

I haven't made alot of progress on the bike in the last month. About 5 weeks ago I was walking home from the neighbors house and my foot broke off my leg. I have the chopper at work and had been going in on my days off to work on it, but I've been spending them in St Cloud getting fitted for a new leg instead. I'm pretty excited about getting the new leg, my old one is just worn out and doesn't fit well anymore.

I installed the new starter in my Sportster and it still hasn't blown up yet. Have about 1400 miles on it in the past 2 weeks so if I be nice to it I think it'll survive a while. The noise is still there but it's not getting any worse. I do not know if it is in the top end, the left side roller bearing or just getting worn out in general.

So I posted a pic of the bike as mocked up as I could make it. Alot of the parts on there are just bolted loosely so I could find the bolts I need. It also gives me motivation to keep moving forward. This project has stalled out on me numerous times do to lack of money or motivation. I keep telling myself that I need to do something to it everyday, no matter how small. Today I am going to get a piece made for the coil mounting bolts. I really like that chrome coil mounted FXR style on the side of the motor.